Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi everybody,

I'm new to the forum. I hope I've found the correct place to post this question.

Several years ago, I had the original pickups in my 1980 4001 replaced with brand new 4003 pickups. (The neck pickup died when the bass turned 26 so I replaced them both.) When I ordered these pickups from Rickenbacker, I also purchased a stereo Rick-O-Sound box as well. Anyway, when I use the stereo jack with the Rick-O-Sound box, I seem to be getting a blend of both pickups going to each channel/amplifier. Shouldn't the volume and tone pots be working completely independent from each other? For example, turning down the neck volume pot will also attenuate the signal coming from the bridge pickup and vice-versa. If I have the pickup selector switch set to the neck pickup, a signal is still running to the channel/amp that the bridge pickup is plugged into as well. Is this the way it's supposed to be? It doesn't seem to be truly stereo if a combination of both pickups are going to both amps, right? Do I need to have my pickups rewired?

This issue has never bothered me in the past so I never dealt with it but now I'm adding effects into the equation and using a 2 channel Acoustic 140 amp, so I'd really like the 2 pickups operating completely independent of each other. Any insight into this will be greatly appreciated, much thanks in advance.

That's not right...perhaps the guy who did the wiring wired them mono?

Anybody else? Dane? CJJ?

OK, here's how it's supposed to work. Use a stereo cable from the Rick-O-Sound jack on the guitar ONLY, nothing in the Standard jack. Then, the neck vol/tone will ONLY affect the signal from the neck pickup, same for the bridge.

If the selector switch is set for neck only, then the bridge pickup signal will be disconnected and there should be no sound from that amp. Same for if the bridge only is selected, just bridge signal, no neck. If in the middle position, neck pickup will go to its amp and bridge will go to its amp, completely separately.

So, what could be going on with your bass? Well, the "Standard" jack is a special one with an integral switch so that when there is a plug in that jack, it will short the neck and bridge signals together to produce a mono output. So, either you have a short somewhere between the two pickups doing what this switch does, or the switch is "stuck". These switches are just metal blades that bend when the jack is inserted. Sometimes they get bent such that it won't disconnect when the mono plug is removed. This is easily fixed by carefully bending the contacts back to where they need to be, or just replacing the jack. It's a bit of a touchy job getting them bent just right, but not too hard if you've got small needle nose pliers and some patience...

Thank you for the replies. CJJ, thanks for the tip about a possible short. I thought it was supposed to be working exactly as you described but now I know of two issues possibly causing the problem. I've been planning on taking it to a good luthier soon, anyway, so I'll ask him to figure out what exactly is going on here and fix it.

I'm looking forward to finally playing it in true stereo into a two channel amp.

Welcome, Jonas!

Where are you located, we may know of someone that could help, if we knew that info.

Thanks for the willingness to help, jps. I really appreciate it.

I'm in Providence, RI, so I'm planning to bring my bass in to Noll Guitars. http://www.nollguitars.com/index.php
They have a great reputation here and I've always been very happy with their work. I would recommend them to anyone here in Southern New England.

I obviously made a huge mistake when I opted for the convenience of having the guitar shop around the corner from me do the pickup installation. (We don't like to drive anywhere more than 10 minutes here in the Biggest Little.) These clowns gave the bass back to me with no strings on it and even scoffed at me when I was upset about it. I thought I could trust the guy since he also had a 4001. Those guys will never see business from me again.

Jonas, you might want to copy and print this out for your tech, or for yourself to look and see if you can spot the problem:

http://www.rickenbacker.com/pdfs/19507.pdf

Wow, thanks for all your help.